More bad news for America's motorists experiencing first hand the objectivity of the Nobel peace prize award committee: all those who were expecting a decline in gasoline prices following one of the fastest jumps in history will have to defer their dreams just a little longer. As Trilby Lundberg observes: "this weekend the world has changed. Instead of seeing
the end of the price rise coming up, or even a decline, we might see a
resumption of the climb at the pump." And as we enter April with near record high prices (for this time of the year -gas is still 54 cebts below its all time summer high in July 2008), this month's consumer confidence number will once again print sorely lacking, causing the most reflexive market indicator to take another step down demanding every more nuanced attention from the Fed, which will soon have no choice but to step in and replace consumption lost (read buy the Russel 2000) due to unprecedented gas prices, further detaching markets from the underlying economy, and not to mention reality. Yet even these nosebleed US gas prices are nothing compared to the decimation in Europe, where gas is now likely almost $9/gallon (when we observed it last two weeks ago, it was $8.632/gallon). Does anyone wonder why France is so eager to liberate the Libyan people from the oppression of their light sweet crude oil, er, pardon, dictatorial regime...

Gasoline prices in the United States rose 6.65 cents per gallon over a two-week period, carried by the rise in crude oil prices stemming from the turmoil in Libya, an industry analyst said.

The national average for a gallon of self-serve, regular gasoline was $3.57 on March 18, according to the Lundberg Survey of about 2,500 gas stations.

The 6.65-cent increase came two weeks after gasoline prices jumped almost 33 cents in the prior two-week period, according to survey editor Trilby Lundberg.

"This is the rest of what crude oil prices did to gasoline, as violence and protest in varying degrees swept through" oil-producing countries in the Middle East and Africa, Lundberg said in an interview on Sunday.

Prices in crude oil "declined somewhat in the last two weeks," she said, citing some traders' fears that the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis in Japan "might mean economic devastation."

But after U.S. and European forces started a military intervention in Libya this weekend, oil prices may be headed for another spike, according to Lundberg.

"This weekend the world has changed," she said. "Instead of seeing the end of the price rise coming up, or even a decline, we might see a resumption of the climb at the pump."

The current average price is nearly 76 cents above the year-ago level, but is still about 54 cents below the all-time high of $4.1124 on July 11, 2008.

Oh yeah, Gordon Brown - the thoroughly arrogant prick - knew what was best for everyone. At least according to himself.

After all, he eliminated boom and bust. Who wouldn't trust that asswipe, who turned our 3% surplus into a 13% deficit, while at the same time overseeing an annual 14% private sector debt/GDP growth, deeming it a healthy development, and coming up with all sorts of "golden rules" which don't work no more when the "boom and bust" elimination has turned into a bust.

Private sector spending went to 53%, and people were clamouring for more of the same. Fucking unbelievable.

He also performed a significant private sector tax raid in '99, only then to spike underfunded public sector pension funds to an incompletely unsustainable level, the majority of which hasn't even been publicly comprehended as of yet. Some areas - Labour areas, of course - went from 20-30% of the population being employed by the public sector to over 50% under him/Tony Blair. All with generous un/der/funded pension benefits.

When the Tories dealt with their mid-90'es recession in a responsible manner, he heavily criticised them for it. But when hit with his own recessions, he blows up bubbles, and blames everyone else.

On top of that, he essentially plied about 100 new taxes on the middle class during his stay, the majority of which hit the private sector. And then, that disgusting asshole David Miliband claims Labour are the party of the middle class as soon as Gordon is out. Absolutely shameless.

Argh, I should stop ranting about Brown. But that man really was the biggest financial disaster ever to hit these isles, WW2 included.

The economic edifice of world markets was dealt a major blow by Japanese intervention entities (BOJ) and the international banking cartel last week. The question now is; When does the esoteric herd hive mind shift happen again? What day does the herd sell off mega US dollars and treasuries?

I can pinpoint the herd hive mind shift in SW Florida RE for Lee County’s median home price to December 2005 at the height of the residential real estate boom that reached a peak of $322,300. The median price of an existing home there sold today is $94,400. What triggered the hive mind shift? The blogosphere's housing bubble blogs certainly brought awareness to the sheeple something was wrong with paying 10 times gross income for a home. When critical mass reached 55% or so awareness, the sell-off began in earnest with many investors left holding the bag. The same phenomenon will most certainly happen to the dollar and treasury bonds as the blogosphere's work reaches critical mass in the dollar crisis arena.

The US dollar is dying, as evidenced with the counterintuitive drop in value last week when hundreds of trillions of Yen were printed. So what day, week, month, in the the near future do US Treasuries and dollars sell off worldwide?

The Keynesian programming is so thorough amongst the masses that even those of us in the know still accidentally attach 10% (interest) where there should be none.

That type of math (interest rates) is what has brought us to this point in history (again) and the reason the dollar will go to the graveyard and join the 300 or so paper currencies which came before it.

ugg America. What can I say? What an embarassment and poor excuse for a country. The people of America need to do something radical, it seems that is the only way the corrupt political and banking system will change. My god what the fuck has America become!?

maybe the best answer from slewie wld be: altho the worst thing that can happen to a US pol is to be labelled "radical", many MOR (middle of the road) types are coming to value preparedness, PM's, God, and/or the universe & the light/dark she is showing us, and the fuking Constitution, esp. Amendment #2.

those of us who are thinking this way do the radical all day, every day. then, maybe, eat out.

i have friends vacationing from Firenze driving North from Florida. They are currently encroaching on the mid-atlantic and simply cannot believe how vibrant this country is and how well it is doing. Their most frequent statement? I thought the US was in a depression.

Time for the gas under the pressure cooker to be ratcheted up another notch. Fed approves Bank Dividend increases to shareholders...third tier Lifeboats are now being deployed. But Shareholders are expendable.

"Does anyone wonder why France is so eager to liberate the Libyan people from the oppression of their light sweet crude oil, er, pardon, dictatorial regime..."

this is spot on. Does any one really think this has anything to do with a couple of hundred dead civilians? If "protecting civilians" was a genuine goal of the UN in the misddle east then there would also be a no fly zone over israel who's warplanes have been masacring innocent and unarmed palestianian civilians for decades. The UN is a disgrace!

I guess it's fine to run over little old ladies with armored bulldozers in your book?

Because that is what Israel does.

And yes, the majority of the Palestinian population is unarmed, unless you count the kids who throw rocks and get shot with assault rifles in retribution. Sure, some groups are able to smuggle weapons in, but that is far from having an armed populace, which would of necessity be far more polite, and less liable to the repeated invasions from Israel.

................. " In the 1930s, the emergence of organized youth cadres was rooted in the desire to form a youth paramilitary along German and Italian Fascist lines. It was believed that armed youth might bring an end to British hegmony in the Middle East as well as the very existence of Jewry. Youth were cajoled into violence by Palestinian political figures and newspapers that glorified violence and death. The Palestinian Arab Party sponsored the development of storm troops consisting solely of children and youth patterned on the German model. A British report from the period stated that "the growing youth and scout movements must be regarded as the most probable factors for the disturbance of the peace". As a youngster, Yasir Arafat led neighborhood children in marching and drills, beating those who did not obey. In the 1940s, Arafat's father organized a group of militants in Gaza which included Yasir Arafat and his brothers. The leader, Abu Khalid, a mathematics teacher in Gaza, gave Arafat the name Yasir in honor of the militant Yasir al-Bireh." .........

.......... " Khairallah Tulfah, participant in the 1941 pro-Nazi coup and an advocate of a pan-Islamic Nazi alliance along with the Mufti, raised and educated his nephew Saddam Hussein from age 10. In 1959, the 22-year-old Saddam failed in an attempt to assassinate Iraqi leader Abdel Karim Qassim. He subsequently fled to Egypt, where he received refuge from fellow Mufti disciple Nasser.

At the time, Nasser, along with the Mufti himself, who resided in Cairo after the war and his conviction by the Nuremberg Tribunal of war crimes, was spearheading what was known as the Odessa Network, which facilitated the settlement of thousands of Nazi criminals in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world. " .............................

I think it is actually higher than that smailes. Since the intafada kicked off in 2000 1084 isrealis have been killed by pal terrorists while the Isreali army (funded by the US gov) have killed 6430 palestinians. you can argue all day whether these dead isrealis and palestinians were unarmed or innocent all you like.

You cant argue about children being being innocent though, they are all innocent, always!

124 Isreali children have been killed by palestinians while 1452 palestinian children have been killed by israel. The scoreboard speaks for itself. The vast majority of these murders of innocents are committed by israeli warplanes. Hence my comment on a no fly zone over israel if the UN was serious about protecting innocent civillians, which they clearly are not. The libya situation is about oil and oil only.

C'mon Tyler. More bad news for US motorists who think they have a god given right to using (wasting) a disproportionate amount of the world's oil at cheap prices (25% of the wolrd's oil with 5% of the world's population).

STOP driving gas guzzling cars/trucks ... like the rest of humanity.!

Bring on higher and higher prices until we get soem sensible conservation.

Tyler’s wit means something; it’s thought provoking. When the president is appearing ridiculous it’s hardly appropriate to be serious about it; it shouldn’t be passed up. And if you have the talent, there’s truth and style in wit. P.J. O'Rourke had it and it worked economic wonders.

It isa little bit odd that we have all these serious problems and Obama’s touring around in the air all the time with press people, secret service, loads of administrative help, burning five gallons of fuel per mile – it kinda makes you wonder why we have the White House spending all that money on cooks and servants and door keepers.All we need is a pilot, a co-pilot and Air Force One.

For someone who believes that the rising gas prices are because of the guzzlers, there needs to be some levity surrounding this strange viewpoint. Where's Lloyd Blankfein when you need him?

Now that the bills for Obama’s and Bernanke’s Keynesian deficit spending and ZIRP and Lloyd's speculatin' are coming due, it’d be kinda nice for Obama and Michell to sashay off the dance floor and tell us how we’re gonna pay them.

Ben and Barack and Lloyd ought to take some advice from Fred Hayek: "The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men's fatal striving to control society – a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals."

Raise the price to $9/gal like Europe that wouldn't inhibit the personal freedom of the US peasants even a teeny bit.

and yet even with higher taxes Europe is mostly broke,

go figure.

Have no fear the like minded folks in the US want to be Europe badly and soon enough most won't be property owners or be able to afford a car either and then maybe they will finally be happy as the class warfare bullshit will finally be true.

The market has had about 250+ points via inflated futures ramping in the past 3 days. Further proof it cannot survive on it's own without a built in buffer. All designed to prevent selling with promises of future manipulation. And according to the past few months all proven to be bullshit promises that cannot withstand actual market volume. Should be very indicative of a market begging to be shorted.

My job in late 70's at age 16----drive all the important peoples cars at my dads company on odd/even days and sit in line and get them filled up. It was boooring. Everyone was speculatring our future would be 2 seater cars w/ 100 mpg and condos---to conserve our resources. How are we doing consumption wise?

As a side conversation to this article, you stated that you live in the UK. Since Obama wants to ultimately institute a single payer health care system, I was wondering if you could give a comment about the current state of the NHS and if it is still in rough shape? I just want to get some info from someone who lives in the UK.

the S&P looks more toppy, but maybe RT is showing us how the wife and daughter of a japanese nukuler engineer roll. the wife has a great layered look, with about $8-10K in gold bracelets peeking out from what i hope is a great faux sable look.

Robertson, invited by government officials to see the damage, said early Monday local time that two circular holes in the building may be telltale signs of cruise missiles, although that could not be immediately confirmed.

Two days’ vacation last week left Nate of Nathan’s Economic Edge in full view of a different economic edge – a consumers' economic edge that looms precariously ahead. He wrote Friday:

“My current journey into ‘the hot zone’ has produced nothing but sticker shock.Rising prices are everywhere, from gas, to dog grooming, dog food, more expensive dinner, on and on. To add insult to injury, I received a $25 parking ticket because I failed to notice that the spots in front of the Tacoma Spaghetti Factory where I have parked free for years and years were now pay for parking with tiny signs that had small print indicating that you now walk half a block to the little pay station.None of the 6 of us noticed, and thus the ticket upon completion of the meal.Slowly but surely, the city is turning into a police state with ticket by mail cameras everywhere and simply more and more attempts to squeeze every last unit of revenue out of you they can.My reaction?After more than 40 years of going there with family, that will probably be my last time – and letters to the chain’s CEO and the Mayor will be in the mail by tomorrow letting them know how they are driving revenue away. Of course I’ve already moved away, and am glad that I did.

“While I have never been one living on the margins, I am now beginning to feel very unsecure with the relationship of rising costs and steady income.I am trying to imagine what it will be like if gas, food, and most other things rise by say another 50% in cost.That type of a move will put the vast majority of Americans on the margins if they weren’t already there, and right now, I can only see one central banker action after another to get us there.The one notable central banker exception is in China where more tightening occurred this morning, but they are so far gone off the deep end of money creation it’s not even funny.”

Behold the Export Land Model. Once an oil producer subsidizes gasoline domestically, it's extremely hard to remove the subsidy. Domestic consumption spikes, and exports are crushed. If you're an oil importer, it gets more and more scarce and wars start.

No faux anything, I am a total moronic imbecile unlike yourself the wannabee intellectual, thing is I get it but the rocket surgeons and brain scientists such as yourself don't.

Europe really isn't mostly broke with significantly higher taxation and the dollar really hasn't been delcared dead 5 times in the last 40years and world commerce in USD really hasn't only dropped from 72% to 65% over that time period,

and US bonds didn't really trade under transaction costs in DEC 2008 pre POMO, no there really is an alternative out there, just ask any ZH neo marxist wannabee intellectual.

Jefferson said it better than I could ever have and this was pre 50% paying no federal income tax.

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for[ another]... till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. "

Now please go on and on and on about the wealth gap all the while the concept of unattainable luxury is largely dead, anyone could have borrowed as much as they wanted at historically low interest rates in the last 10yrs and the 0% rates on savings are not hurting the poor or middle class in the slightest. The trillions in foregone interest from the savers being the only folks who have actually paid a penalty for folks borrowing the net present value of their lives from 2000-2006.

I know those evil banksters and Wall St are to blame, except of course the bankers could have worked for free and nothing changes. Somehow making capital accessible to the masses at lint like interest rates was really a ploy by the wealthy to plunder the masses. While use your house as an ATM was cashing out for hundreds of thousands the system made pennies on the dollar-but I get it-those damn wealthy elite banksters are the devil incarnate.

I get it though, to the wannabee ZH neo marxist the US federal government being the largest: consumer, employer, lender, borrower, landlord, tenant, real property owner and parents to 50million people has no bearing on anything.

The wars on drugs and poverty have been abysmal failures, somehow Oprah Winfrey can become a billionaire but in the end the American public really doesn't live a far greater lifestyle than even their immediate ancestors could have dreamed about, they are all being oppressed by the evil wealthy elite and not being strangled to death by the immense size of the state and federal governments.

I have created jobs in this country but given the current circumstance of hard work largely meaning rolling out of bed and the endless regulations leading to boons in things like payroll paying industries, temp industries et al-I won't be again anytime soon.

Afterall those assembly line jobs of doing the same thing 500times a day for 50yrs straight were the good jobs.

Remember I am the moronic imbecile and I get it,

they could raise taxes to 90% and two months later would be looking for 95% and not because of the wealthy elite.

Of course you would now go look in the mirror and say I am so smart 1000times.

I know what a neo marxist is, they are all over this site not that tough to find one and if the shoes fits wear it next time instead of denying the sky is blue.

Nothing novel in the teeniest bit to the same old doomday woe is the common man, class warfare bullshit posted here ad infinitum, the same crap was being promulgated by like minded individuals 40yrs ago, 30yrs ago, 20yrs ago and will be 30yrs into the future. Libertarian? How hilarious as if anyone advocating for moderating the obviously beyond out of control US federal government is now a libertarian.

No, if world's governments sucked just 1/3rd less than they do out of the global economy it wouldn't make any difference at all- if one takes LSD and/or is a neo marxist.

THe ultimate irony here is the same unaccountable ideological academic theoreticals- like the neo marxist wannabee intellectuals that are overtly abundant on ZH -are perpetually at the helm and perpetually fucking things up-go figure.

“He is free…who knows how to keep in his own hands the power to decide, at each step, the course of his life, and who lives in a society which does not block the exercise of that power.” –Salvador de Madariaga, NY Times, January 29, 1957

Does anyone wonder why France is so eager to liberate the Libyan people from the oppression of their light sweet crude oil, er, pardon, dictatorial regime...

Not at all. The business as usual. At least they try to maintain a facade of decency by waiting for UN resolution. I wonder hovewer, do they have so many tomahawks to dispose or this is again Uncle Sam's fiendly contribution to the victory of democracy in yet another oil rich country?